


In Silence, He Stays

by RiatheMai



Series: What Hell Has Given Us [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cagefic, Hell Fic, Hurt, Hurt/Sam, M/M, Non/Dub-Con Elements, mentions of abuse, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 01:53:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14509911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiatheMai/pseuds/RiatheMai
Summary: Fill for the LJ OhSam: Happy Birthday, Sam Winchester Hurt v Comfort meme prompt: "A Normal Day in the Cage" by Amberdreams. I chose Hurt.Prequel to The Taste of Hell On Your Skin.





	In Silence, He Stays

**Author's Note:**

> This is a CageFic. That should be warning enough. There is no comfort to be found here, so if the idea of abuse, cruelty, and dubious consent is upsetting to you, this might not be the story for you.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to my wonderful betas: Kailene and LoveThemWinchesters.

_S*U*P*E*R*N*A*T*U*R*A*L_

 

In the beginning, Lucifer takes delight in torturing him, inflicting such horrors and abuse upon his body that Sam welcomes the moments when death comes, temporary respite that it is.

He soon learns how to quicken it, to incite Lucifer to the point where he is beyond composure, beyond cruel for cruelty's sake, driven so incensed by Sam's unwillingness to beg and plead for mercy that he simply tears Sam's body apart.

Sam learns to endure the agony: the burning and shedding of his flesh, the snapping and shattering of his bones, and the tearing and impaling of his organs. He tells himself it is his due for all the wrongs he did. He wraps that penance around himself and he lets it feed his resolve and strengthen his will to meet each death and resurrection with determination.

With apathy.

Eventually, Lucifer loses interest in the sport. A body can only be broken so many times before the threat and promise lose their effectiveness. There is no goal, after all, no end game beyond vengefulness and spite. And, apparently, even Lucifer has a limit to how long he will play a game he cannot win.

That doesn't mean he won't find a new game to play.

The sight of Dean's face and the sound of his voice in this place where he shouldn't be draw a reaction. Hope flares, then dies like a tiny ember choked out by the mountain of ash that surrounds it. This isn't _his_ Dean. It's the Dean that Hell made, Azazel's pupil and protégé, cold eyes and colder smile, reveling in each strip of skin he peels slowly back from Sam's body.

How long Lucifer revels over that victory Sam has no idea. Time means nothing in the Cage. There are no days or nights, and even if there were, Sam has no way to mark and track their passing. His hands are the first thing Lucifer takes from him every time, breaking off his fingers, one by one, and crunching on them like carrot sticks.

He gloats always out of sight, his voice drifting out from the haze that surrounds the icy pillar of stone to which Dean has crucified Sam. His laughter echoes in the area, menacing and maniacal, each taunt a counter beat to the steady cadence of Dean's methodical blows.

 _'Dean would never do this to me!'_ becomes a shield Sam holds up against this new cruelty: the vicious words coming from Dean's mouth flaying and searing Sam's spirit as surely—even more so—as the blade or brand in his hand does Sam's flesh. _'You're not Dean.'_

This he knows. Despite the rift that grew between them in that year before _The Fall_ , Sam's many betrayals and failures just cause for all of Dean's anger, disappointment, and distrust, there are things that Dean just will not do. Not to anyone, but least of all to Sam.

Again, Lucifer grows bored. He stays away, leaving Sam with only darkness and cold. Nothing to see except endless black—a black so heavy it presses like thumbs against the lids of his eyes. Nothing to hear, not even the sound of his own voice or his own harsh breath—just a silence so complete it fills his head and pulses against the drums of his ears. No touch and no smells and no tastes. Just cold and black and the passing of time immeasurable.

Eventually, Dean returns. His face is kind, and his hands, when he touches Sam, are gentle, soft caresses against skin so starved for contact it is almost agony in itself. The nerves rise to the surface of his flesh, reaching beyond, seeming to tear from his body to grasp after the coarse glide of callused fingertips. The small sob is painful to ears and vocal cords so unaccustomed to sound and speech, but he can't hold it in.

And, just like that, the touch is gone. Dean is gone, and all that remains is the Nothingness. His skin crawls with the renewed memory of contact, of touch and sensation. His heart aches for something he buried long ago, before the Cold and the Black and the Passing of Time Immeasurable, before the pain and the blood, before the rending of flesh and the breaking of bone, before branding and burning and iron hooks driven deep into his bowels.

Maybe, even, before _The Fall_ itself.

 _Dean_.

It wasn't _his_ Dean who came to visit him. He tells himself this until he believes it, but some traitorous and pitiful part of him doesn't care. It felt like how he remembers Dean to be, long ago when Sam was safe and loved and protected, when nothing bad would happen to him because Dean was around. He's glad he's not here with him in this terrible place. Dean has suffered enough of Hell because of him. But, now, in the remembering and the reawakening of things forgotten, he aches.

That ache stays with him. He has no idea how long it's been since he felt that tender touch upon his skin. He wonders if it was just a dream that Dean sat beside him on that crypt-cold slab of stone and traced the ridges of his broken bones and the valleys of his wasted muscles. Maybe he imagined the whole thing.

The thought frightens him. Dreams are weapons, the sword that cuts both ways; they are key and lock and dungeon. Lucifer sees all in the Cage; every thought is his to steal from the fetid air itself and to hurl back, twisted and barbed and poisoned.

Lucifer can't have this. He won't let him. He won't let him have Dean. Not his Dean. Not the Dean of his memories. Not the Dean who loves him as much as he loves Dean. He won't give Lucifer so much. Not if he can help it. Not if he can prevent it.

By the time the touch is back, Sam has convinced himself that he's forgotten about it, that he doesn't crave it and there is nothing for Lucifer to see and use against him. He has also forgotten what touch is, so long has he been alone.

Soft. Tender. It starts as a tiny pinpoint of sensation tracing up his arm, across his chest, and down his sternum. The blackness peels back from his eyes, and Dean is there smiling down at him, the green of his eyes lit from some deep inner fire. There's a look in them that Sam doesn't recognize or understand, but it stirs something long buried.

One point of contact becomes five, slowly spreading out low on his belly, right at the place where Lucifer likes to pierce him and clutch at the coils of his intestines. He waits for it, for the breath-stealing agony to tear through him, but there is only that gentle glide of a hand so familiar its touch is written into the very code of his psyche.

A second joins it, and he knows the feel of those hands, the scratch of every callus as it slides across his skin. He knows the span and the weight of them, and the way some of the fingers bend at odd angles. Mostly, he knows the strength of them.

He's had those hands on his body so many times, but never has their touch felt so... electric. His skin seems to ignite, millions of microbursts exploding across the surface. It's immediately too much and not enough, every nerve suddenly screaming out at once for something—anything—as long as it's more than what it currently is.

"Please!" The word tears out of his throat.

Dean's smile grows cruel. Mocking. He shakes his head as if he's chiding an errant child, and just like that, he's gone.

The Blackness closes in on him, and the Cold seeps up around him, gliding across all the places those precious hands just touched him. It burns like razor blades and Sam screams until his vocal cords shred in his throat.

He should taste blood.

He's denied even that.

He learns to stay silent after that. Sound chases away the touch his body has started to crave. Sound turns the kindness in those beloved green eyes into something alien and cruel, and leaves him with a loneliness that is a worse torment than any Lucifer ever inflicted with hook and scalpel and brand.

Sound steals Dean from him.

And he knows it's not _his_ Dean, but he doesn't care. Not anymore. This is the _only_ Dean he will ever have, and now that he's had the promise of what those hands can do and he's seen the hint of _more_ that lurks behind those eyes, Sam will do _anything_ not to lose it.

He'll stay silent so Dean will stay.

And in that silence, Lucifer breaks him.

 

 


End file.
